John chapter 19 and verse 31. It is Christmas time, and normally I should, I suppose, be preaching somewhere around the birth of Christ. I mean, something around the story of the birth, but I'm not, because that's not what God led me to do. I just do what I'm led to do. I'm often surprised at what He leads me to do, and I really do seek His face on that. Do you think this morning that you know God? Do you think you know God? We husbands, if we were asked, do you think you know your wife? I would say she's not knowable. She's wider, deeper than you can grasp. And with God, it's amplified much more. You know, I mean, Putting your mind around God. Well, the Bible's written so that you can know Him. Whom to know with life everlasting. Paul's aspiration of life, Philippians 3.10, that I may know Him, the power of the resurrection, the fellowship of His suffering, being made conformable unto His death. What, what, what, what, what, what, what? I like that verse except for the last part. Being made conformable unto His death. How did Jesus die? Well, each of us in our journey of Christian life, you born-again believers here this morning, after you trust in Christ, you begin to mature. We grow in grace and the knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. We learn more and more, and it's God's desire to build His Son in you and to make you in His image. He uses a lot of different ways to do that. He uses time, because it takes time. He uses troubles. He uses sufferings, blessings, answered prayers. He uses seeing his hand in your life and power. He'll use reading the Bible. Maybe as much as anything I've just mentioned, he'll use reading, simply reading the Bible through cover to cover every year. Or if you want to do it more than that, beautiful. But the more you read the Bible, the more you're going to be like Christ. The image of Christ is going to start shining. I've seen people's countenance change. Literally their face change as they read the Bible year by year. It's amazing. It's the best disciple tool. There is no better discipleship tool out there. But that's one way. Also, we hear testimonies from a lot of times Christians that have lived longer in the faith about who God is and who they found God to be in their lives. All of these that I mention and more teach us who God is in some degree and what he's like. The text that we're going to go over here, when I first read it, this was, by the way, this came to me in a hunting blind in Northern Michigan when I sat there for three hours and saw nothing. And I just meditated and I concentrated and I contemplated and I rolled that thing over and I maybe even mutated. or is it muttered, excuse me. But as I went over the Bible, and this verse, I couldn't get it out of my mind. I just couldn't get this verse out of my mind. And the Holy Spirit just wanted to roll something past me, and I had never, in all this studying I've done through these years, never have I preached on this. The background to the text before we read it is Jesus has just died on the cross. He gave up the ghost. He threw his last kiss from Calvary. There are seven kisses of Calvary, seven statements he made from the cross. They call them the kisses of Calvary. And he threw his last kiss and bowed his head, gave up the ghost. The Jews were worried that this crucifixion would bleed into their Sabbath day. And so they went to Pilate and they asked for something that we're not familiar with, because we're not familiar with crucifixions, is something that would speed up the death of those on the cross. Because sometimes people on the cross would last two, even maybe three days before they die. It was the most gruesome, horrific way to kill somebody. And the Romans had perfected it. And so it was very strange that Christ had already died. Very unusual that he already, but he was God. And he said, no man takes my life from me. I pick it up, I lay it down, and that's what he did. He gave the ghost up. It was under his prerogative as he was on the cross about three o'clock our time, three in the afternoon when he died. And so how do you speed the process up? Well, that's the verse we're gonna read here. We're gonna read, in fact, verse 31 through 33 of John 19. The Jews, therefore, because it was preparation that the body should not remain upon the cross on the Sabbath day, for that Sabbath day was a high day, Beshop Pilate, and this is the part that I'm going to talk about, that their legs might be broken. Now they thought all three of the people who were crucified that they might be taken away. Then came the soldiers and break the legs of the first, that is the first thief, and the other thief, which was crucified with him. But when they came to Jesus and saw that he was dead already, they break not his legs. Now, these are soldiers that did this every day, who knows how many years. They were professional. They took a spear and they thrust it into his side, into his heart. They knew where the heart was. They're professional at anatomy, at killing people. and they threw the spear up into the heart and water and blood came out and they knew that he was dead. But the Romans had a rule that if somebody didn't die on the cross, they would take the soldier and put him on the cross. So they made sure those people were dead before they took him off the cross, because their life was at stake. I want to give you a few observances on this statement here this morning. I think it, I, Let me say this, I believe on a general basis, there is a tremendous misconception among Christians of who God is and what to expect from him. That is because of the proliferation of false teaching. There's every direction you can imagine. The proliferation of health and wealth teaching that has been propagated by many famous, if I mention their name you'd know them, that have been on the internet, on TV for the last 40 years and even maybe longer. They have given the average Christian a misunderstanding of who God is, consequently a false expectation of who God is, consequently a disappointment in God, and Finally, bitterness at God. Yeah, this can happen and it happens all the time. I have met many Christians that are bitter at God. And if they're not outright bitter, they're really, really disappointed in God. Now you can't go around disappointed in God and serve him well. You're not gonna serve him well if you're disappointed in him. And so I can't tell you how important this message is. to get your mind around this, and I want you, you don't have to take my word for it. You meditate on this, you concentrate, contemplate, and you will roll this thing over in your mind. I'm just reinforcing your Sunday school, brother. Roll this thing over in your mind, and I believe God will show you what he's showing me also. Let me read in Matthew chapter 27, you don't have to turn there, verses 43, 44. The folks around the cross, it wasn't enough to crucify Jesus. They wanted to rub it in emotionally. They railed on him. They said, he trusted in God. Let him deliver him now, if he will have him. For he said, I am the son of God. Now, there are witnesses and there are also many who call and say, oh, Jesus never called himself son of God. The truth is he did. And so many other people, a whole list of people testified he was a son of God. That means he was deity manifest in the flesh. They understood what it was. And so the thieves also, it says in verse 44, the thieves also, thieves, both of them, also, which were crucified with him, cast the same in his teeth. In other words, both of those thieves, as the crucifixion wore on, railed upon Jesus and mocked him and said, look, you trusted in God. Come down, deliver yourself in us now, if you're who you say you are. You say, hey, they say you walked on water. They say you calmed the storm. They say you fed the 5,000. They say you healed the cripple. They say you gave sight to the blind. Now, why don't you use some of that? We're in a mess here. Help us. In Luke chapter 23, verse 39 to 44, I'm gonna go on and read. something wonderful, something marvelous, something magnificent that happened during the crucifixion. It says, one of the malefacts which were hanged railed on him, saying, if thou be the Christ, save thyself and us. But the other answering rebuked him, saying, dost thou not fear God, saying, thou art in the same condemnation? And we indeed justly, for we receive the due reward of our deeds. But this man hath done nothing amiss. And he said, now this is it, man, this is it. Luke chapter 23, verse 42. Jesus, Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom. And don't you love the next sentence there? Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, today thou shalt be with me in paradise. And it was about the sixth hour, that means noon, Jewish time. And there was a darkness over the earth until the ninth hour, three o'clock, when Jesus finally gave up the ghost. One of the thieves unquestionably became a child of God while he was on the cross. And he was, if I may say, the first to be saved out of the kingdom of God, at least from that perspective. Do you agree with that? He got saved, right? He got saved. Do you agree that he is an heir and a joint heir with Christ when he got saved? Do you agree that soon he would be in paradise experiencing the wonders of heaven and eternity with Jesus? Do you agree that Jesus will and has prepare him a mansion, a place to live? Do you agree that his name, as part of being saved, born again, that his name was written down in the very Lamb's book of life? And your name better be there, by the way. If any book you want your name written in, you want your name written in that book. Do you agree that all the promises of God were this thief's when he got saved, this thief? I mean, isn't God good? In the midst of this guy being crucified for something he deserved to be crucified for, he humbled himself with a simple sentence. Oh, remember me when I'll come ascend to thy kingdom, Jesus said today. Thou shalt be with me in paradise. Now, people sometimes say you can't get saved that fast. Well, they can argue with God about it. I believe this old thief is bound for the promised land. What about you? I believe he became a child of the king. What about you? I think good things were facing this thief. I believe God wants to be my comfort, my provider, my bulwark, my high tower. But something we do not understand or know about God is this. And let me read again, John chapter 19, verse 32. Then came the soldiers and break the legs of the first and of the other which were crucified with him. God allowed the legs of both thieves to be broken. I want you to chew on that. Concentrate, meditate on that. I want you to. I want you to roll that over. I want you to imagine with me, which is part of meditation I just learned this morning. I want you to imagine with me what we just read or you looked at or listened. Let me describe a little bit of the scene. Jesus, you're one of the thieves. You're the saved thief. Let's imagine we're the saved thief. We're on the cross, we're in pain, but it has settled down a little bit. You know, you're not moving around. You've been crucified for a while now, six hours. And Jesus had died. And you and the other thief can still talk, still communicate. You can stand on your two legs, lift yourself up. You can breathe. You're cognizant of what's going on. As a saved thief, you're still on the cross. You see the soldiers, because you're watching intensely what's going on. You see the soldiers begin to talk to themselves. As a saved thief, you're kind of still reeling mentally of what Jesus told you. Today thou shalt be with me in paradise. you would be in paradise today. Now, the end of the day is 6 p.m. It's 3 p.m. You got three hours, you're gonna be in paradise. That's basically what that was interpolated. And so it would seem strange to me, if I was that thief, not to imagine a merciful and easy death. Maybe God would let me just bow my head and give the ghost up like Jesus did. Maybe an angel would come in white and allow me and grab, take my hand, call my name and take my hand and take me away in death. Maybe God would let me have a heart attack. Amen, amen. Best way to die is a heart attack in bed. Maybe God would let me have the big one. I mean the big one. I mean real big. I mean the thing stop where you can't get resuscitated. Maybe up on the cross I'd let me have a heart attack and just, you know, I'd black out. I don't think it would be strange for me to believe that this guy had some of those thoughts, you know, because these people were familiar with people dying on the cross, were not. They were familiar that it can be two or three days that the vultures will start coming to pick your eyes out and all this other stuff. They knew about all that. But maybe this man, this man just was told by Jesus Christ today, not tomorrow, today thou shalt be with me, with me in paradise. I got three hours. That's all, three hours. Wow. As this saved thief is looking around, he sees the soldiers talking to each other. He sees them go over to Jesus, and you know, I'm imagining this, right? But it's not too far from what could have happened, right? He sees the soldiers come over with a sharp spear, go up to Jesus and thrust him in the side, and they see blood and water come out the side. They think, boy, you know, yeah, he's dead. And the soldier's talking, yeah, he's dead, he's dead, yeah, he's dead. Well, he's dead, I'll bet my life on it that he's dead. Okay, he's dead. Then they see one soldier walk over to something he had stored over to the side there and pick it up and it looks like a real large baseball bat. Looks like a real large baseball bat. Maybe something like this big around on the end. And he sees a soldier pick that thing up and he thinks, what's that for? He sees a soldier walk over to the other thief. And as he walks over to the other thief, he hears the other thief begin to cry for mercy. Please, please, please don't use that. I don't know. I can tell you, I cannot duplicate this morning and it would not be appropriate for me to duplicate this morning how serious the cries of that man would have been to the soldier. Please don't do that. And the old safe thief looks around and he sees the soldier wind up. And he sees this man screaming for mercy, that first hit upon the shin bone right here. And he hears a thud and a bang like a branch breaking. and the high pitch, you can't fake that, that high pitch scream at the top of your voice when you're in absolute agony. He sees a soldier wind up the second time as the thief still is crying for mercy. And he sees him swing and hears that thud and hears that crack like a branch break into the second leg. The thief falls down upon his arms. And all he hears is kind of a strange gasping sound from him and maybe a gagging sound. The screams stop, the talking stops, it becomes quiet. What I just described is not the worst. What I just described, what's worse than what I just described is you're the next guy. And you've just seen and heard all that. And he thinks he's mine, I would have thought. Well, he said, he said, I'm saved. I'm saved, the son of God, he saved me. But the old soldier walks over to him, just like he walked over to that first guy. He winds up like he wound up for that first guy. Amidst this cries for mercy and compassion, the soldier hits him in the shins again, breaks his shin like the pain comes up his spine, blows out the top of his head. He squeals like a rabbit being killed. The soldier takes another wine and the second leg is hit and broken. That saved thief falls down upon his arms. His lungs are restricted to where he can't breathe, and he tries to breathe, and for two long minutes, he's conscious as he tries to breathe. And finally, the outside, if you've ever been, if you ever understood what I'm talking about, the outside begins to come in, and he blacks out. I have to say and you have to agree that God let this happen. I believe you have to agree that God let this happen to a new convert. I believe you can't deny that God let this happen to a new born again child of the king that had by faith trusted in Jesus. God let this happen to his newest believer in the atonement. He allowed this horrifically painful, terrorizing act to happen to one that he just promised paradise, just promised peace, just promised joy and freedom, and so many more things that you could mention about paradise and heaven, eternal life. Well, let me give you some conclusions this morning from that little phrase, that little passage there in John 19, 31. You and I as born again believers need to get out of our mind any trace of health and wealth gospel. You need to get out of your mind any little trace of that heresy. The heresy that says God some way somehow is going to make things easier on you because you're a Christian than the rest of the folks. Let me say this, with authority I say this, our forefathers did not think that way. John Fox, who wrote Fox's Book of Martyrs, who had plenty of material to go through of testimonies of our forefathers, who were born again believers, that God allowed to go through things worse than what is described that this thief went through. Worse. I think if you read the life of Adoniram Judson, how many in here know about Adoniram Judson? Anybody? It's so sad that we don't have 100%. It's just so sad that you folks haven't read about Adoniram Judson. Read, look it up, Adoniram Judson's life, read it, it's riveting. It's a whole lot better, it's a whole lot better to know about Adoniram Judson than it is who won the Super Bowl or who's ahead in the NFL and the kneeling pro league. I know that was mean, but it's true. But Adam and Eve just in two years was kept upside down every night in a cage for Jesus. That was God's way of welcoming him to Burma. Welcome to Burma. He lost both of his children over there, buried them, buried his wife over there. Our forefathers did not have a misunderstanding of who Jesus was and who God was. They did not think somehow or another because they were a child of God with all the beautiful promises of the Bible, which are all true, that somehow they were gonna have it easier than the world has it. That somehow God was gonna come in and lift them up on wings of a dove and make them having a cushion type of a life. make them comfortable, pain free, somehow more prosperous because they're a child of God. Tell that to the saved thief that died on that old cross. Tell that to the hundreds and thousands of martyred saints in our past Tell that to Paul, the apostle, the great, called the greatest Christian ever lived. When he describes what he was allowed to go through, come on, come on. Eventually taken and beheaded. That was the most merciful thing he suffered. He got beheaded. That was the most merciful thing he suffered. Tell that to Peter who was crucified upside down the head. It's always listed Peter, James, and John. Peter, James, and John. Tell that to James who was martyred in Acts chapter 12, never even kind of got out of the chute. I always wonder, by the way, and I'm probably going to ask, maybe I won't when I go to heaven, why James was killed so early. I mean, you know, you're talking, you only got 11 people, and you tell them 11 people, go to the world and preach the gospel to every creature and tell everybody about me, and then you have one killed right up front. I'm like, wow. James, do you think, do you think that God owes those folks an apology? Do you? If you do, you've been infected. by health and wealth thinking. We need to learn who God is. I'm talking about who God really is. He doesn't owe you anything on this side. The promises I find in the Bible about pain-free, tear-free, crying-free, are on the other side. All of the promises of those are going to come true on the other side. That's why I never want anybody that goes over to the other side as a born-again Christian to come back. You're cruel if you want them to come back. Man, we need to know who God really is. It will not, and if you understand that God doesn't, look, Dr. Krabs sees this all the time. Medical doctors see this all the time. Christians die of the same stuff the world dies of. We get cancer, we go long, slow, agonizing deaths down. I've seen people have 10 years slide before they die. I've seen them lose their mind, not know who they were, their husbands have to take care of them, and all this other stuff that goes on. You think God owes any of them people an apology? But I served God for 50 years, faithful, tithe, gave Him my, you know, I gave my talent, my tithe, let's see, I'm gonna get this. It's a T formation, time, talent, and treasure. It's the T formation, football, you know, T. Time, talent, and treasure, I gave it, I gave it. God, you're surely not gonna let me get sickly, go suffer, and have, you're not gonna let me go through it. God doesn't owe you anything. You say, well, I've seen people, I've seen saved people go and not hardly have any suffering in their life and die. That's between them and God. Dick Carr. Dick Carr got saved when he was 60 years old. He memorized a bunch of the Psalms. He used to get up here and quote the Psalms to us, and I loved the guy to death. He got to die like that. He got to die just like that. One of our other members, he died in his sleep. One of our, Bob Sandsmeyer. How many of you remember Bob Sandsmeyer? Old Bob, he and I went door to door. on Saturday, up steps, down steps, up steps, down steps, up steps, down steps, all morning long, giving the gospel to people. Sunday morning, he got up, started his Sunday school lesson early, thought he'd lay down and take a little nap, and an angel came in and took him home. When I did his funeral, I said, let me die that death. Hey, I'm not asking for pain. Oh, I want to die like... That's one beautiful thing about riding a motorcycle. That's why you don't wear a helmet. You don't want to go no trauma center. You want them to put you in a bag. Take you home. You OK, hon? She's old white. She's suffering. She's living what I'm talking about right here, God. She's had trouble with her legs, her knees, pain in her body. See, that's the trouble. I know a lot of those stories. And what I learned is, I said, God don't owe me a healthy life. He don't owe me a wealthy life. He don't owe me any kind of pleasure. He don't owe me anything. I just want to die the death of the righteous. Let my end be as His. And brother, when you say that, that's a mouthful. I hope this morning by looking at that passage that you in some way, some of you at least, need to be a little shock therapy, a little shaken because The governing philosophy among Christianity is that somehow or another, we're born again Christians, God's gonna, well, he'll take you, keep you out of all trouble, keep you out of all pain, keep you from everything, and you're gonna die a wonderful, you know, quick, boom death. But that's, folks, I'm just giving you, I've seen people get bitter because of the misunderstanding of who God is. They say, God didn't do me like he did that other person. Well, don't, first of all, it's unwise to look around. How God does with you is one thing, how he does with me is another thing. That's between him and you, and me and him, and who knows how it's gonna happen, but any way it happens, God is good. The thief, as soon as it was over, and I'm gonna tell you, that had to be horrifically, mentally wild, what he went through. But as soon as it was over, after that two minutes was over, and he finally, when that angel in white came up and said, come with me, everything's all right in my father's house. In my father's house, in my father's house, everything's all right in my father's house, where there's joy, joy, joy. I don't have to have it here. as long as we can get it there. Father, help us this morning.